Yes, folks, the masterclass week in Hannover is come and gone and was a complete success! Carol arrived on Monday evening and taught a few lessons (I got one too) at my place on Tuesday morning. Wednesday was the first day of the official seminar and everything went very smoothly. It was great seeing some participants from classes in Paris, Lyon or Frankfurt and to hear their sometimes astonishing improvement. We had one hiccup due to the fact that I'm not really the best of organizers: Instead of 11 lessons to teach on Thursday (already 1 more than prefered), suddenly there were 12 people on the list! Ack! Luckily, I was able to convince a woman from Hannover to come to my house on Saturday for a lesson. Phew, narrowly missed the dog-house there!
I can hardly believe it, but we made it in under budget! That means that our participation fee was just right. Not too low and not too high. Double Phew!
We would love to make these classes in Hannover, Germany a yearly occurance. It depends on Carol's availability and on the other seminar weeks in Germany. It would be best to spread them out logically. Carol and Aldo are considering living in Europe (probably Lyon, France) for a few months of the year in winter. That would make logistics sooooo much easier! Will keep you posted.
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Showing posts with label Hanover. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hanover. Show all posts
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Audition!
Sorry, this post is very late. I forgot I never finished it or posted it!
So, I had my first audition in years the other day. I sang for 5 or 6 church musicians around Hannover. It was the strangest audition.
When I first arrived in Hannover I heard that there had just been one of these Audition-for-everyone-at-once sort of events, and that I'd missed it. I called the office that organizes it to get the names of the musicians so I could contact them and audition for them personally. But no, the woman wouldn't give me that info! It's a German thing - Data privacy, dontcha know? Anyway, she put me on the list for the next one, which was on Tuesday.
I got a letter and a form to fill out about 6 weeks ago. In the letter it stated that they had had so many applicants that they could only allot each of us 6 minutes. Six Minutes?!? The next requirement was that we should sing 2 pieces. One from the standard baroque sacred music repertoire (ie an aria from a Bach Cantata or Oratorio). I'm sorry, but there isn't a single aria that is less than 5 minutes! That leaves 1 minute for the 2nd song. At best. Sigh.
In the end I chose to sing "Ich will Dir mein Herze schenken" from the St. Matthew Passion by Bach, which is a da capo aria, meaning I could skip the repeat of the A section, making it about 3 minutes long. It's relatively fast, has lots of sixteenth notes, shows a good range and has a few endless phrases which Bach is famous for, which I can do well. As my second piece I chose something contrasting, slow with long lilting phrases: Evening Hymn by Henry Purcell. The song is very long, but I figured if they didn't want to hear the rest they could stop me.
They didn't. Which I'm glad of. They were pretty stone-faced throughout my singing, but then when I thanked them and offered them my Curriculum Vitae or resume, they all smiled and seemed interested.
I was the first one on for the day, and I think they were still pretty unorganized (one of the musicians was late and came in during the Bach), so I didn't get any information as to when or if I might hear anything official.
I'm still waiting. I hope that's not a bad sign. They've probably got singers lined up through Easter at least and so I don't really expect to hear about specific jobs until after Christmas, but it would be nice to get feed back.
We'll see!
So, I had my first audition in years the other day. I sang for 5 or 6 church musicians around Hannover. It was the strangest audition.
When I first arrived in Hannover I heard that there had just been one of these Audition-for-everyone-at-once sort of events, and that I'd missed it. I called the office that organizes it to get the names of the musicians so I could contact them and audition for them personally. But no, the woman wouldn't give me that info! It's a German thing - Data privacy, dontcha know? Anyway, she put me on the list for the next one, which was on Tuesday.
I got a letter and a form to fill out about 6 weeks ago. In the letter it stated that they had had so many applicants that they could only allot each of us 6 minutes. Six Minutes?!? The next requirement was that we should sing 2 pieces. One from the standard baroque sacred music repertoire (ie an aria from a Bach Cantata or Oratorio). I'm sorry, but there isn't a single aria that is less than 5 minutes! That leaves 1 minute for the 2nd song. At best. Sigh.
In the end I chose to sing "Ich will Dir mein Herze schenken" from the St. Matthew Passion by Bach, which is a da capo aria, meaning I could skip the repeat of the A section, making it about 3 minutes long. It's relatively fast, has lots of sixteenth notes, shows a good range and has a few endless phrases which Bach is famous for, which I can do well. As my second piece I chose something contrasting, slow with long lilting phrases: Evening Hymn by Henry Purcell. The song is very long, but I figured if they didn't want to hear the rest they could stop me.
They didn't. Which I'm glad of. They were pretty stone-faced throughout my singing, but then when I thanked them and offered them my Curriculum Vitae or resume, they all smiled and seemed interested.
I was the first one on for the day, and I think they were still pretty unorganized (one of the musicians was late and came in during the Bach), so I didn't get any information as to when or if I might hear anything official.
I'm still waiting. I hope that's not a bad sign. They've probably got singers lined up through Easter at least and so I don't really expect to hear about specific jobs until after Christmas, but it would be nice to get feed back.
We'll see!
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